Introduction
Cloud computing has dynamically transformed the landscape of network environments in this competitive world. Businesses realize that the cloud is worth exploring as it provides security, flexibility, scalability, and efficiency. A few years ago, companies restricted their IT operations and information to private data centers. Today, virtual desktop technology and the growth of multiple service platforms enable businesses to store their resources in public clouds that they can access anywhere and anytime.
The easy availability and accessibility of public cloud services do pose concerns related to privacy and control. As a result, some organizations believe that going public is not the best decision for their IT infrastructure. They are interested in maximizing the benefits of both public and private cloud setups, and this is where the hybrid approach comes in. It creates an on-premises or private cloud to bridge the gap between traditional IT delivery and a public cloud. This supports projects that can benefit from a cloud delivery approach but should remain on-premises.
Hybrid Cloud Definition & Benefits
This is a responsive, top-tier strategy that mixes and matches dedicated hardware, public cloud services, and private cloud platforms to unlock real business value. Its potential lies in supporting digital transformation (DX) by catering to an accelerating pace of change with versatile compute infrastructure. It frees enterprises from the shackles of proprietary hardware and software stacks and establishes a setup that goes beyond facilitating immediate user access to corporate resources. The hybrid model eliminates costs through automation and embraces agile delivery to offer a consistent experience with the level of control a business needs.
There are numerous benefits of investing in this model. Let’s explore them in detail.
Business Continuity
Business continuity is one of the most crucial elements of running an organization especially in uncertain times like COVID-19. Companies must consider elements associated with resilience, recovery, and contingency when making a business continuity plan. After all, the ability to continue operations during a disaster or technical failure matters. This cloud approach backs up and stores valuable data within, so there is no way businesses can lose any information.
Companies can also address the requirements of remote employees by providing on-demand access to information that is not tied to a single, central location. They can move data to private, on-premise servers while making core applications and services available on the public cloud. A user simply enters the right login credentials and they get what they need. So, teams working across borders and time zones or those who travel regularly benefit from a flexible and accessible IT arrangement. In addition to attracting and maintaining top talent, businesses optimize efficiency and productivity.
Network Optimization
When moving to the hybrid cloud, you are probably aware that relocating a data center requires in-depth planning and flawless follow-through. End-users will always want your company’s resources to be easily available irrespective of location. If you do not meet this demand, chances are they will blame your local network.
You have to change your network infrastructure to support the hybrid model because no matter how your local data center performs, it is not specifically designed for the cloud. Use hosted cloud services to move your network operations off-premises and improve the availability of the connection. Furthermore, you can tap into the cloud to prevent system outages with actionable insights and analytics.
Implement load balancing to improve latency as well as application, website, and database performance across different locations. This is useful for businesses with multiple office branches. It enables them to deliver infrastructure from a region that is near an employee rather than a central data center.
Security
Safeguarding sensitive information is always a concern in the context of network-enabled applications. This is especially true of the public cloud which has a more open environment than a private network, making it a prime target for data theft and cybercrime. Moreover, in this day and age, one cannot afford to risk customer information or their proprietary data and assets.
So, how does a hybrid environment help? It offers better flexibility within its architecture as well as a higher level of security as compared to public systems. Enterprises can also choose where to house data and workloads based on security, compliance, or policy requirements. Security departments can standardize redundant cloud storage which is an integral part of data insurance and disaster recovery (DR). Furthermore, centralized administration simplifies the execution of end-to-end technical security measures, including automation, encryption, endpoint protection, and access privileges.
Another idea is to have companies capitalize on the security of a private cloud with the services of its public counterpart. IT administrators retain direct control over the structure of a private cloud and they establish protocols for managing critical resources.
Scalability
A challenge of a private network is the capital investment that one requires to build, maintain, and expand the network. So, what happened before public cloud solutions allowed organizations to expand their IT resources without investing in physical infrastructure? Businesses would grow operations as quickly as they could afford to buy new servers. So, what is the issue that arises? Although maintaining an in-house network is beneficial, it hinders business agility.
Once again, a hybrid architecture is ideal. Business information, assets, and operations stay in the private cloud, but companies can take advantage of the cloud to dynamically boost their operational capacity. The public model makes it simpler to develop new applications and operate analytics that an SMB with a few servers would otherwise be unable to. This development presents an opportunity for companies of all sizes to compete with more established names in the market.
SMBs face another problem. Scaling on-premises IT infrastructure can be costly, inefficient, and impractical for them. How accurate are their resource consumption projections? When can they expect their next big spike? At what rate will their startups penetrate the market? In a hybrid deployment, one can easily tether on-premises to the cloud assets they require for a specific moment. Leading CSPs have data centers around the world with impressive hardware capacity, giving enterprises unlimited resources on-demand.
Innovation
Responding to changing customer demands and market conditions with great products and services is the key to innovation. This is possible by constantly carrying out R&D which allows you to stay ahead of the competition in a rapidly evolving marketplace. The thing is R&D takes time and money and depending on your product or service, modeling may involve new IT infrastructure. Factor in the cost of equipment, installation, and maintenance, and the problem becomes complicated.
Before cloud technologies, the expense of implementing innovation involved massive CapEx in setting up infrastructure, human resources, and research. These procedures put a burden on available resources and capacity management practices which led to uncertain forecasting metrics. By utilizing the hybrid approach, companies can prototype products, concepts, and solutions in the cloud without adding to costs. Vendors providing pay-as-you-go pricing for temporary projects like modeling and direct tethering to improve security also facilitate environments for continuous research. The cloud makes all this happen by offering resources such as data, network, and relevant architecture.
Once you set up your hybrid cloud, bursting into its resources and services can be swift and automated. You can accelerate time to market of unique digital products, and hybrid allows rapid beta-to-production with low risk.
DevOps
What if you want both off-premises and in-house infrastructure to develop and test workloads? For instance, an in-house option may be feasible for intensive applications that involve high consumption and data bandwidth which could potentially make the public model an uninteresting investment.
Many development and test workloads can gain from residing in a hosted cloud setup because of their elastic nature. Developers can effortlessly scale capacity to match demand and only pay for what they use. They can leverage cloud-based containers to enable greater portability from one data center to another if a system fails. This speeds up application development, hence enhancing DevOps. Additionally, you can use a hosted platform to create clean, infrastructure-independent code that streamlines workload positioning and provides a more consistent UX.
Conclusion
Real business problems call for state-of-the-art, enterprise solutions that empower organizations with reliable infrastructures and unmatched information security. At Clouve, you receive:
- Cloud Service Integration Solutions
Ensure efficient integration with business intelligence, ERP, and CRM systems.
- IT Infrastructure Modernization
Bring cloud-like speed and economics and build the infrastructure that works for you.
- Continuous Innovation
Conduct automation with data lakes and predictive analytics.
- Niche SMB Services
Mitigate security risks and eliminate the need for third-party solutions. We enhance your technical reputation in your market.
Would you like to learn more? Please get in touch with us today for a personalized recommendation!
